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Bette

#11,099 in 2025Girls' name

My God is an oath

Bette has been given to 34,919 babies in the U.S. since 1896. In 2025 it ranked #11,099 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 1924, with 1,736 recorded.

Babies named Bette, 2025

1 in 414,000

Bette over time, 1880–2025

GirlsBoys
05001K1.5K2K18801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Bette: meaning, origin, and history

My God is an oath

English familiar form, ultimately Hebrew

About Bette

Bette is a familiar form of Elizabeth, ultimately meaning “my God is an oath” in Hebrew. Its short spelling has two established pronunciations, BET and BET-ee. Bette Davis and Bette Midler made those different sounds especially familiar through film, music, and theatre.

Meaning and related names

Elizabeth comes through Greek Elisabet from Hebrew Elisheva. Its elements refer to God and an oath.

Bette belongs to the large group of familiar forms that developed from that longer name. Betty and Bettie are close relatives, while Beth and Betsy take different parts of Elizabeth's sound.

The longer name has a deep biblical history. Elisheba appears as Aaron's wife in the Old Testament, while Elizabeth is the mother of John the Baptist in the New Testament.

Bette therefore carries an older religious name in a much shorter form, alongside its strong modern entertainment associations.

Two pronunciations

Bette Davis pronounced her name BET-ee, like Betty. Bette Midler uses BET, rhyming with “let.”

Midler was named for Davis, but her mother understood the spelling as a one-syllable name. The same written form consequently became associated with two different spoken names.

Both pronunciations are established in English. The final e is silent in BET, while BET-ee gives the spelling the familiar two-syllable rhythm shared by Betty.

Bette Davis and film

Davis won the Best Actress Oscar for Dangerous at the 1936 Academy Awards. She won again for Jezebel at the 1939 ceremony.

The films themselves appeared in 1935 and 1938, respectively. Her later career included All About Eve, released in 1950, in which she played established Broadway star Margo Channing.

Anne Baxter's Eve Harrington enters Margo's life as an admiring young woman whose ambition gradually threatens the older performer's position. The film turns theatrical success, aging, friendship, and competition into a tightly connected drama.

Davis's work made Bette especially recognizable during the era of studio Hollywood, with the spelling becoming closely associated with her screen presence.

The American Film Institute recognized her wider career with its Life Achievement Award in 1977.

Bette Midler on Broadway

Midler won the 2017 Tony Award for lead actress in a musical for Hello, Dolly! She played Dolly Gallagher Levi, a matchmaker with plans for other people's relationships and her own future.

The musical follows Dolly as she brings together a series of potential couples while pursuing a wealthy merchant herself. Its central role combines comedy, song, and the ability to command a large ensemble.

Midler's award-winning performance gives Bette a major theatrical association decades after Davis's classic films, joining two generations of entertainment history through the same spelling.

American popularity

Bette's best United States girls' ranking was #148 in 1923. Its largest annual count came in 1924, with 1,736 births.

In 2025, eight girls received the name. Its American peak belonged to the early twentieth century, before the best-known award-winning work of either Davis or Midler.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning and history draw on the references below. American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling; counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted. Existing Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA. Informal shortening suggestions are identified in the prose.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How popular is Bette?

In 2025, Bette ranked #11,099 among girls in the United States, with 8 recorded uses. The U.S. birth records first list this spelling for girls in 1896; its largest annual count was 1,736 in 1924. Rankings count each spelling separately. They describe national use, so local familiarity can differ. The popularity chart shows whether the name has remained common, returned after a quieter period, or risen recently.

How common is Bette?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 414,000
8 of 3,315,165 births
Among girls only
1 in 201,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2025
#11,099
of 17,293 girls’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
287,238 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Bette sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 287,238 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Bette. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Bettes were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Bette was born before 1932 — so the typical Bette is around 93 today.

Median birth year
1932
About 93 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
38.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
0.39%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
4,790
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 38.0% of all recorded uses (13,273).

Is Bette rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
−2,068
Places dropped
Rank vs 5 years ago
+1,255
Places climbed
Rank vs 10 years ago
−70
Places dropped
Births vs 10 years ago
0.89×
Fewer babies than then
Share of its own peak
0.46%
Peak was 1924 (1,736)
Years since peak
101
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
35.8% average annual change
Best rank ever
#148
1923

Spellings of Bette

Bette is not the most common spelling — Betty is, with 62.5% against Bette's 2.2%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Bette is used

Across 1910–2025, Bette was most concentrated in Iowa — about 1 in 1,639 girls, against 1 in 4,899 across all states with data. It was least common in New Mexico (1 in 100,000).

161 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Iowa1 in 1,639
  2. 2Montana1 in 1,724
  3. 3Nebraska1 in 1,724
  4. 4North Dakota1 in 2,041
  5. 5South Dakota1 in 2,041
  6. 6Minnesota1 in 2,222
  7. 7Wisconsin1 in 2,326
  8. 8Idaho1 in 2,564

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Bette has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Bette around the world

Where Bette ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    2004–2022
    #5,670
    in 2022
  • South Australia
    1944–1956
    #540
    in 1956

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Notable people named Bette

People whose public names include Bette, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Bette in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Bette. Linked forms have their own page here.

BethBettaBettieLibette

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Bette by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
#11,099
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Up 1,255
Best rank ever
#148
1923
Peak year
1924
1,736 that year
First recorded
1896
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
34,897
Count in 2025
8

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#3,494
1940
Peak year
1924
6 that year
First recorded
1924
Last recorded
1940
All-time count
22
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Bette

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

BetsyBettieBethBettyeBethanyYvetteBethelJanetteLynetteColetteIvetteBettinaBettySuzetteNanetteBetzyJulietteEvettePauletteLizetteDanetteLisetteOdetteArlette

Names with a curve like Bette

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Bette, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

MelbaLaverneDorthyImogeneMargeryEarlineErnestineBernadineJohnnieRebaJimmieMaxine

Sibling names for Bette

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Bette

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